How to Correct Drainage Problems

Sometimes keeping it simple, outwits the idealist, with dollar signs in their eyes. People have been taking care of drainage problems, even before the shovel was invented.

Instructions

1. Predetermine your goal. If a ditch or creek, below your property, overflows after a healthy rain, you know drainage can be dealt with only to a point, unless you decide to improve water drainage beyond your property. In order to give water drainage its maximum possibilities before it leaves your property, the old remedy still works. You do not have to hire a high paid college graduate to tell you, "you need to dig a ditch".

2. The end of your ditch, ideally at the lowest point on your property, determines where the ditch should lead to. The place, or places water builds up during heavy rains, should determine where the other end of the ditch or ditches begin. Naturally, the lower end of the ditch must be at a lower level than at the higher end. A ditch low in the middle could become a place for mosquitoes to grow.

3. The next step, if you do not want a ditch in your yard, is to fill the ditch or ditches with gravel. You can cover the gravel with certain kinds of cloth or screen to delay root growth into the gravel. Eventually, root growth in the gravel will slow down drainage.

4. If after so many years, the drainage path you dug, no longer is working satisfactorily, you can dig another ditch adjacent to the other one. However, due to land erosion, the next ditch may call for a slightly different path.

5. If you choose to place pipes in your ditches, instead of gravel, always lay the pipes so there is never as much as a 90% turn, in the event you want to call a plumber out to get the pipes cleared. If you install thin walled pipes to save dollars in the short run, the plumbers rooter will tear them up. That would mean forget that and dig another parallel ditch for another pipe.

Tips & Warnings

• If you choose to put pipes in your ditches, instead of gravel, a periodic add of liquid bleach may kill the roots and clear the water flow without having to hire a plumber.

• If a drainage ditch can't solve your problem, consider getting a sun powered water pump to deliver excess water from you yard or basement.